Jesus welcomes children

It is a story to which I return again and again. It is the story I use to demonstrate what I mean by emotion, physicality, and audience showing me meaning in a biblical composition when I embody it to ‘perform’ or ‘tell’ it. And this week, a friend asked me if I’ve written anything about this story, so I’ve pulled a couple of reflections together from my old blog, Sarah tells stories, for Ellie, and for you.

Jesus welcomes the children
Mark 10:13–16
Jesus MAFA

Reflection 1: welcome as they are

One piece of meaning we may derive from this story is that we must do as Jesus does in this story and others and look for the little ones and welcome them to the table. ‘Little ones’ as the marginalised, unseen, vulnerable. Jesus was often referring to children and women, the Bible stories across their breadth call us to look for widows, orphans, strangers. ‘Welcome to the table’ evokes the feast image used for the realm or kin-dom of God (think Wisdom in Proverbs, or parables of banquets from Jesus). This phrase is another way of saying welcome the little ones to take their place as members of our communities.

I read such an interpretation once, that then went on to claim that these little ones to whom we offer welcome, ‘bring nothing to the table.’ I took exception to this notion. I acknowledge that we could with this idea be talking about resources, so that we expect refugees, widows, orphans, the marginalised, to have little by way of money or other tangible resources.

But I wonder if we risk dismissing or diminishing the contribution a marginalised person might bring to the table, if we presume that what one has to offer is only physical resources.

Isn’t the most precious, vulnerable thing we can bring to the table is all we have left to bring when money and property have been stripped away? What is left is our selves, our humanity, our being. And what a gift that is.

adapted from a piece published on Sarahtellsstories 7/10/12.

Reflection 2: welcome as neighbour

In 2011, I was invited to record some stories for a resource provided by the Uniting Church for Lent. One of those stories was that of Mark 10:13–16. I reflected afterwards on how I had embodied the story for telling it, and how I interpreted it through that embodied performance. (This is an early example of the method I went on to develop in doctoral studies, and present in Embodied Performance. Mutuality, Embrace, and the Letter to Rome. Discover more here)

People were bringing little children to Jesus that he might touch them – but the disciples spoke sternly to them. The disciples spoke sternly – that is to say, they were sending the people away. My voice carried a sternness, my gaze a rebuke, and I swept my hand strongly, palm upright, between where I imagined Jesus and the people to be as a ‘stop’.

My immediate feeling with Jesus’ indignation was to insert ‘Oi!’ into his rebuke of the disciples! In the end, the ‘Oi’ dropped out of the telling, perhaps because it felt distracting, or too comical, or too much like eisegeting Australian culture into the story. I carried the feeling of the ‘oi’ into my expression of Jesus words – Let the children come to me.

And as I spoke the rest of his words, I entered his character a little more, and played him inviting the children in between the phrases do not stop them, pick up a child and lift him above his head, and I would look at the camera as he spoke, for it is to such as these that the kin-dom* of God belongs, take a baby from the mother and hold her in his arms, back to the camera, Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kin-dom of God (looking back at the child now for a moment) as a little child (and back to the camera) will never enter it. Then I played Jesus handing the baby back, and looked at the camera again for the final lines – and he took the children in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them (with a smile).

It felt important to enter the character of Jesus and cross the line into acting just a little in this story, for a number of reasons: I was telling this within a theme of who were Jesus’ neighbours, so I wanted to bring the children in as neighbours, as characters present in the story. It is Jesus who brings the children into the story, into the picture, so rather than only having the narrator tell the audience that this is what Jesus did, communicating the meaning of this by showing Jesus welcoming the children felt more effective.

I often find myself deeply engaging with Jesus when I tell his story – imagining what he might have felt, feeling the indignation at children being turned away. I couldn’t feel his indignation, which is there in the story, and not show it. My instinctive ‘Oi!’ was a deep connection with his feeling here, with the emotion in the story. Storytelling is a gift because it connects with the emotion and invites listeners to connect with the emotion. When we feel something we know more deeply than anything we know cognitively. And by allowing myself to feel his indignation, I understood the value he placed on those children, and how, when looking at them, he was reminded of our relationship with God. His love for the children, his love for the adults, moved him to urge the disciples to look at the children, and understand God and their relationship with our Divine Parent.

Telling mark 10:13-16 Jesus and the little ones

Sarahtellsstories 5/12/11

Reflecting further: Jesus welcomes

In some ways, this story isn’t about the children as neighbours, but about how we are to enter the kin-dom of God – with the vulnerability of little children who rely on their parents with a dependence for their lives. However, here’s something that occurred to me as I was reflecting on the story: if we do not welcome our neighbours, and especially those we overlook as our neighbours – vulnerable, unseen, the little ones, seemingly insignificant human beings like children were, and often still are – we can not learn from them. In this story, Jesus sees the children as fellow human beings of dignity and worth; as his neighbours. Jesus welcomes the children, and invites the children to teach the adults something very important about the kin-dom of God – that we are to remember our vulnerability and deep dependence on God for our very lives. How many times have our ‘children’s talks’ in gathered worship taught the adults more than the sermon? How might ‘children’s talks’ become opportunities for the children to more explicitly and intentionally share with adults?

Everyone Welcome
signs made by children
at Wesley Uniting Church, Canberra

Are there ways you might invite your congregation to embody this welcome for the little ones? To have adults share with the children (and adults) something of their life, their work, a hobby, an experience, that implicitly or explicitly shows their faith & life lived out; and to have children share, as a group what they’re exploring in sunday school, and as individuals, what’s happening in their lives. Perhaps we can thus learn and grow together, through relationships of vulnerability, sharing of who we are, how to live God’s way of love in the world.